Lufthansa has discovered a new source of ancillary revenue and will soon start to offer designated Economy Class zones as ‘Comfort Seating Zone’ on Lufthansa and Austrian long haul flights.

The Comfort Zone will be located in the first few rows of the Economy Class cabin on long haul flights and available for a premium fee except for Senator / HON Circle Members who can still select these seats free of charge.

Lufthansa Group carrier SWISS is already offering this option for quite some time and apparently it works for them. That being said, SWISS also charges 135 EUR for “Privacy Seats” in Business Class which are the single seats on the left side of the cabin that are positioned on the window side.

Even though Lufthansa hasn’t officially published any updates or news in general about this new feature, German aviation magazine aero broke this new idea of Lufthansa Revenue Management (see their article here – in German).

According to the article this new feature is said to be introduced from February 20th 2018 onward for Lufthansa & Austrian Airlines long haul flights where passengers can purchase seating in the first rows of the Economy Class cabin for a price ranging between 30-50 EUR (presumingly depending on the duration of the flight).

There will be no further comfort feature other than sitting in the front of the cabin. Seats, service and seat pitch are exactly the same.

Conclusion

Not sure who would be willing to spend 50 EUR on such a feature without any specific value. I can hardly see the benefit in this. Keep in mind that you can almost always bid via the Lufthansa Plusgrade option for an upgrade to a higher class of service and upgrade prices for Premium Economy start quite low in many instances. I’d rather spend a little bit more for a product that’s actually a class of it’s own rather than paying for a plain Economy seat located in the first few rows.

Since the system appears to be working for SWISS it seems many customers have a different perspective than me and are just too happy to pay for this.